The Duck Pond
by Addicted-To-Sugar-Quills
Summary: A love story in seven parts: MollyWeasleyiii/AliceLongbottomii. Femslash


**The Duck Pond**

_I haven't published anything since February… so maybe I'm a little rusty? Please review :)_

I.

Molly is nine years old when Alice Longbottom the second pushes her into a duck pond. The younger girl is giggling with her partner in crime – Oliver Wood's little nephew, a normally shy and serious boy called Patrick – when Molly emerges from the water, dripping from head to toe, a murderous look in her eyes, and, ignoring the proprieties her father has drilled into her since before she could walk, chases them back through the cornfield that leads to her Grandparents house.

II.

It's two years later and Molly is home from her first year at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays. Her whole family are crammed into the Scamander's living room due to an invitation that had originally been extended to only the Longbottoms and Potters, but that a combination of the Christmas spirit and (Molly suspects) rather more than a little Firewhiskey, had grown to include all the Weasleys. There is very little seating space and that is how Molly ends up squeezed between her Aunty Luna's grandfather-in-law – the bawdy and prodigiously deaf Newt Scamander – and her own uncle Charlie who is snogging his latest girlfriend with more vigour than is really appropriate given the setting. The rest of the family are watching the younger kids show off their (exceedingly boring and, at times, barely stomachable) talents. Alice is no exception – Molly doesn't think she's ever heard the cello played quite so badly.

III.

Molly is fifteen when her sister Lucy dyes her hair purple. Her parents are livid and the shouting match that ensues is so loud and lasts so long that Molly just has to get out of there. She floo's the Potter's house hoping to find Albus – out of all her cousins, he's always been her favourite – but is instead greeted by the sight of James and a couple of his friends (Alice, and the brown haired one she thinks might be called Alex) making a mess of his kitchen. James lets her join them – proving once more that whatever their personal feelings might be, family always comes first for those with Weasley blood –and she helps Alice spoon cupcake mixture into the cases while the boys make them laugh as they try to catch the chocolate drops, that were _supposed_ to serve as decorations, in their mouths.

By the time she gets home it's dark and she's all but forgotten why she left in the first place.

IV.

The next year Alice finds Molly crying on the stairs that lead up to the owlery. Molly lifts her head, eyes tinged red from the tear tracts that run down her cheeks, long enough to scream a torrent of abuse at the girl whose only crime is the words, "Are you okay?"

Alice doesn't say anything in response – doesn't yell back- but neither does she run away. Instead she places a pack of tissues on the stair next to Molly and makes her way quietly back the way she came.

Later, much later, Molly wishes she'd told the younger girl why she'd been crying – that she'd just broken up with her boyfriend of seven months with those ever so cliché words, "You're just not my type."

She wishes she could tell Alice – tell anybody- that she's not even sure _boys _are her type.

V.

It's the summer before her seventh year, at the Weasley's annual back to school bash, that she sees Alice again. Molly's snuck off to try and get some peace and quiet to finish her book and the third door she tries (The first two had contained James entire collection of prank supplies for the party and Teddy and Vic engaged in some activities that she'll be trying to unsee, respectivly) contains Alice playing her cello. Molly thinks that she's improved a lot from the ten year old girl that had practically caused her ears to bleed at that Christmas party all those years ago.

Alice stops playing abruptly when she hears the door close with a bang, and Molly flushes red, "You're very good," she mutters awkwardly.

"Thank you." Alice nods her head, letting the silence extend between them.

"Do you…" Molly hesitates, "Would you mind if I stayed?"

In Alice's half smile of ascent Molly knows that she is forgiven – not only for the interruption, but for her transgression of the year before as well.

VI.

It's nearly Christmas in her seventh year and she's patrolling the fifth floor corridors when she comes across Alice, for the lack of a better description, sucking the face off a Ravenclaw girl in the year bellow. Alice's hair is messy and her tie is somewhere on the floor, but she answers Molly's raised eyebrow with a cheeky grin, "what are _you_ doing here Weasley?" she asks, cocking her hip.

Molly can do nothing but stare, wide eyed – trying and failing utterly to reconcile this version of Alice with the cello playing, cup-cake making girl that had given her tissues when she cried- but after a moment she breaks into a slow smile. "As you were girls," she says eventually, winking in a way that could almost be considered flirtatious before sashaying away, laughing at their gobsmacked expressions.

VII.

It's another year before she kisses Alice Longbottom and a further year after that before they tell their families they're together… officially, or whatever. The words, "About time!" are banded around often enough that night but Molly can't stop grinning – not even when Alice gets bored of her over the top happiness and pushes her into the Weasley family duck pond (again).


End file.
